Natural and Agricultural Erosion Rates

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Exemplar Type: MODULE
Title: Natural & Agricultural Erosion Rates
Grades: Undergraduate
Discipline: Science
Submitted By: Sarah Fortner
Courtesy Of: InTeGrate at Carleton College


Summary Students will identify their perceptions of erosion by examining images of mountain and agricultural landscapes and discussing which environment is more erosive. They will use geospatial figures to compare erosion rates associated with both natural and agricultural landscapes in the United States. Students will then consider how the presence of agriculture has reduced the areas of soil production, replacing them with regions of soil loss. They will reflect on the negative impact of agricultural erosion on soil sustainability.



BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

  • Places are alive, unique and evolving. If humans want to flourish over time, our relationships with the places in which we live must be mutually beneficial

  • A sustainable solution solves more than one problem at a time and minimizes the creation of new problems

  • The changes to the Earth’s surface environments made by human activity are causing unintended consequences on the health and well-being of human and other life on Earth (proposed Anthropocene Epoch)

Applied Knowledge and Actions

  • Healthy Commons

  • System Dynamics and Change

  • Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

Higher Order Thinking Skills

  • Complex: Critical Thinking

  • Complex: [Living] Systems Thinking

  • Mindful: Metacognition

Dispositions

  • Resilience

  • Place/Community Conscious

  • Responsible

Applications and Actions

  • Contribute to the regenerative capacity of the systems upon which we depend

  • Design for whole systems integrity with ecological principles and physical laws in mind

  • Envision, strategize and plan